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A telegram, lodged between the pages of the book, S.

It’s another blank page. It’s time to conquer it! Let’s go!!!

My motivation for today that is.

Anyway, I had a good long meeting with my bed last night after a very long day yesterday. It was a day that included the long-overdue adult physical checkup (I’m good, but need a bit more exercise) and the sometimes-dreaded work performance review.

On a much brighter note, I got more reading on S. done. The core story is a decently good one. So far, it’s featured a man with amnesia (that’s S. himself) and a ship crewed by whistling ghouls. Seriously, only one shipmate could sort-of-speak English. S. has endured being Shanghaied so far, and his adventure’s only just begun. To be clear, he knows his name, as do people he introduces himself to, but it’s obscured from the reader so that whenever he presents himself, it looks like this:

“What’s your name?”
“S—.”

It’s the only book I’ve ever picked up that is written this way.

At any rate, it’s getting a bit easier to keep the loose items that come tucked into the book from falling out, now that I’m a bit closer to the middle of the binding. Like a good video game, I’m looking forward to discovering their meaning on my next “play-through” of this book.

Also, my sweetheart shared this fun video, made by one of my favorite YouTube creators, Freddie Wong:

She truly knows how to get me hyped for a movie.

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Apologies, but I need to get something silly out of my system. It’s not that silly, but just on loop in my head.

OK, now that that’s out of my system (3 months isn’t long at all), it’s on the to the rest of the blank page. It’s putting up quite a fight today. I won’t let it win. There will be words that form thoughts. Soon.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. -Albert Einstein

This writing thing is tough on days like today. That’s because I can think of not a single original thought to put forth here and it’s annoying. I’m also fighting off a buzz of distractions that are in my head. Those thoughts, that have no substance, are the hardest to get away from because they keep playing, like an old radio station, in a tight loop.

Like right now, suddenly, I’m thinking of a different song than the one above and it’s stuck playing its hook over and over again. Maybe I can purge it if I listen.

…

Well, that was fun, but I don’t think it worked so well. The page is looking less blank, so I’ll consider this battle a draw and return for more combat tomorrow.

 

Photo Credit: Annie Spratt

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The problem: my name, when ordering food or drink always gets mispronounced or misspelled. Or both.

Some of you know my struggle. Some of you just resign yourselves to live with it. Some of you have fun with it. It’s the latter group I envy and want to join.

I know. I know. It’s a silly thing to obsess over.

That’s me, though, with the name Ryan, and I suffer along with the Bryans and Brians of the world in that it’s sometimes also misheard when I say it and when I hear their names shouted out instead of my own.

So, one solution my friends (and one close to me in particular) have resorted to is to use a different name for themselves when ordering. One that is different than their real name names. A name that will not be misspelled or mispronounced. Their “coffee” (or tea, or a smoothy, etc.) name/

This name thing is harder than one might think.

So far, I’ve not had much luck, and the most recent attempt, “Joe,” resulted in Joey on the cup, cheerfully written. If it gets to be too frustrating, then that’s why you see this post because I need your help.

What names have you had successfully being pronounced and written?

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My most popular tweet:

Some context is in order:

Yahoo Inc Chairman Roy Bostock fired CEO Carol Bartz over the phone on Tuesday, ending a tumultuous tenure marked by stagnation and a rift with Chinese partner Alibaba.

Yahoo CEO Bartz fired over the phone, rocky run ends

The search for a Yahoo! CEO was also the spark of many jokes. I liked Snoop’s offer to step in, so I commented, and Snoop retweeted it. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to have your phone going off every few minutes with retweet notifications, it is kind of exciting. That tweet had pretty good reach for being sent so quickly. I didn’t expect it would even be noticed due to the sheer number of replies to the original tweet.Has anybody else had a bit of good luck on one of their posts? I want to hear about it. Comment or post about it.


This post is also a part of the blogging challege over at the Desk Community.

5 Days to More Engaging Content – Day #3

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There were no donuts today (the picture is from yesterday), but apparently, there is a holiday for donuts, and, unfortunately, it’s in June. We had donuts brought in by an angel of a co-worker yesterday, which got me thinking that there might need to be a holiday for it and that I shall create it! Luckily, another had this idea (long) before I did.

 

 

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Mmmm… donut…

It wasn’t Homer. It was a bit before our times. Check it out here (and mark your calendars!)

National Donut Day

This bit of silly writing was inspired by a prompt over on the Desk community site. The Desk app recently got some big love by being included in Apple’s Apps of The Year list. Huzzah!

Anybody out there ever had an idea and was close to acting to making it happen and then discovering, it’s been done (and, did you do it anyway?) Sometimes, doing it anyway can yield surprising success.